Commencement of commercial operations of the extended metro line on Kanakpura Road and Mysuru Road will be on time, provided the present situation is under control by April, says the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL).
Managing Director of BMRCL Ajay Seth said, “We are hoping that if the situation becomes normal soon, we will be in a position to start the commercial operations within the timeline set. However, we cannot say what challenges we are going to face in the coming days. As and when they come we will deal with them. At this point of time, we are hoping to start operations.”
The BMRCL has planned to open the extended Green Line (Yelachenahalli to Anjanapura) from Independence Day (August 15) and the extended Purple Line (Mysuru Road to Kengeri) from November 1 (Karnataka Rajyostava).
The BMRCL has already been dealing with challenges for the projects, including acquisition of NICE land. But it has maintained that if acquisition of NICE land gets delayed, existing depots at Peenya on Green Line and Baiyappanahlli on Purple Line will be used for operating trains.
Once the extended line gets operational on Kanakpura and Mysuru Road, the Green Line will add 6.29 km more in addition to the existing 24.2 km (from Nagasandra to Yelachenalli), and 6.465 km of metro network will be added to the Purple Line. The existing operational length of the Purple Line from Mysuru Road station to Baiyappanahalli is 18.1 km.
Delay in tunnel work
Under phase II of the Namma Metro project, the BMRCL has planned to construct a tunnel network from Dairy Circle to Nagawara for 14 km and has already received two tunnel-boring machines. Officials were confident of assembling machines imported from China and starting tunnel work by March, but that did not happen because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The BMRCL has also received some components of two more TBMs imported from China.
As a precautionary step to curb the spread of COVID-19, like any other infrastructure projects in the city, construction works of Namma Metro have also been stopped temporarily.
(This concludes the two-part series on impact of the lockdown on infrastructure projects)
